It was late into the evening by the time Mau and Suvdaa reached the orc encampment. The two stopped talking as they emerged within earshot of the posted guards and began communicating solely in hand signals

'I go. You stay.' Mau signed up to the archer in the trees. 'Quiet. Cover me.'

Suvdaa nodded and signed back, 'Shoot to kill?'

Mau's tail flicked and she motioned at it.

'On signal.'

"I am not watching your butt, Mau." Suvdaa hissed down at her, with a frown.

"What? It's a nice butt, though! ... Isn't it?"

"That's not what matters, now be quiet!"

Mau signed the signal for 'fine fine!' and huffed.

'Go.' Suvdaa replied in sign and shooed Mau onward.

The basic plan was to have Mau scope out the camp while Suvdaa covered her, long range, from the trees surrounding the base. If Mau could find the location of where the hag's cherished person was being held then they would move from there.

It was likely too risky to move them now, but if Mau made it out unscathed and unnoticed, then they could always come back another time and spring the prisoner free, likely with a better formulated plan involving a distraction a lot of dead orcs, and preferably a murdered Demon Lord General.

Mau crept to the edge of the camp and took cover behind another tree, it was dark save for the light of several torch carrying guards on the periphery, sleepily half-assing their night watch... Save for one orc, smaller than the others by a degree of magnitude. He was wide awake and glancing around himself in a paranoid manner as he wandered a little too far from the edge of the camp.

Mau found her target.

The paranoid orc was both the weakest link in the chain of guards and the most alert. It made the most sense to eliminate him and slip through the gap his death would leave behind.

Mau lowered into a crouch and pointed at the small orc from her cover and flicked her tail.

Suvdaa made an irritated sound as she readied her bow, lining up the shot and holding her breath until...

Mau started to wiggle.

Suvdaa couldn't help but blink at the sight of the catgirl's backside shimmying left to right almost excitedly as she readied herself.

Mau suddenly paused, peering back over her shoulder at the raider.

'Taking long.' She signed one handed, before Suvdaa realized she had been holding both her breath and her shot for a little too long.

"Ugh!" Suvdaa groused as Mau resumed wiggling her ass. She let her arrow loose.

The arrow whistled softly through the air before embedding precisely in the orc's neck. Almost in the same instant the arrow hit the orc, Mau took a long, vaulting, leap through the brush and the darkness. She pounced him to the ground without so much as a sound.

If the arrow didn't kill him quickly enough, Mau's dagger in his ribs finished the job, before she started dragging the lifeless body back into the bushes.

"Dumb cat..." The raider muttered under her breath as Mau emerged from the brush and started creeping her way towards the camp through the now very wide open hole in the orc guards' defenses. Suvdaa nocked another arrow to her bow ready for the next signal, if Mau needed cover.

Mau darted through alleys formed by rows and rows of tents and soon Suvdaa lost sight of her as she slipped deeper into the camp. Mau would be on her own soon enough but Suvdaa kept a wary eye on the encampment.

Then she saw a cat's tail sticking up in the distance and sighed.

She held her breath and readied to take another shot...

❧

Mau was certain Suvdaa could still see her give the signal in spite of how far into the camp she had managed to infiltrate. She flicked her tail as she stared intently at the sleeping orc resting outside a large tent with his back to one of the support poles stuck into the ground.

In the next instant an arrow whipped through the air and the orc gasped quietly. Mau covered his mouth with one hand as he opened his eyes and inserted her dagger into his stomach in a quick series of three stabs. He jerked from the first, jolted at the second, and went limp from the third as she eased him silently to the ground.

Lifting her head up from another act of porcine murder, Mau quickly glanced left and then right to make sure no one had seen her and that no one was coming as she tugged the dead body into a nearby tent that she had made sure was empty, rolled the corpse into the bedding and tucked him in neatly so that a cursory glance couldn't tell if the orc was dead, asleep, or dead asleep. And just like that, anyone who found the dead orc would be a problem for Future Mau.

With the posted guard now very dead and out of the way, Mau silently poked her head into the large tent. It took her eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness inside and she made a face as she was rewarded with the sight and stench of slumbering orcs. This wasn't the tent she was looking for, so she quietly backed up by a step or so and started creeping around it to try the next large tent. There was just a slight problem in the fact that a campfire was standing between her and the next tent, with a pair of orcs sitting by the fire, wide awake. Mau was now deeper in the camp and out of Suvdaa's effective range, and she would have to give the two a wide berth to get by them. She stuck to the shadows in a low crouch, barely making a sound as she stuck to the periphery of the fire and moved with the flickering shadows.

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The orcs talked in hushed grumbling tones in the language of their dark lord, Dommonian. They were complaining about the late shift and how they could rather be sleeping than keeping watch. Mau kind of quietly agreed with them. She would rather be napping right now, and had to cover her mouth to stifle a yawn.

While the two orcs bitching about guard duty complained to themselves, Mau snuck past them without a sound and moved to the back of the tent out of their eye-shot. Using her dagger to cut a hole in the rough fabric of the tarp she spread the cut with her fingers and peeked on in. Normally it would have been too dark to see, but her cats eyes adjusted quickly and soon she could see another tent of snoozing orcs and goblins. She grumbled quietly to herself as she still hadn't found what she was looking for, but then spotted two wide awake and alert guards manning a much smaller tent. It would be much harder to sneak up on them, but they must have been guarding something important if they were so alert without complaint.

Mau considered her options. She could try to lure one away and then take them both out one at a time, distract them somehow, or just try and kill the both of them quickly before they raised an alarm.

The last option would be the trickiest and probably not worth the effort or risk, she considered while eyeing the pair and pursing her lips thoughtfully. Something in the trees barely moved and Mau looked up. There was a fucking bear in the trees. Or at least a girl in a bear cloak, crouched on one of the branches. Suvdaa had shifted position to remain close to Mau. She motioned with her hands.

Mau shook her head and signed for Suvdaa to hold position and wait for her signal, and that she was still planning out what to do.

That's when Mau saw something else. And her eyes widened as she realized that she had struck gold.

A small wooden crate sat unattended by the sleeping tent, and it had been haphazardly left open. When she peeked inside it and found little more than a few rotten food scraps, the catgirl was soon grinning like the cat that had caught the canary.

Mau crouched and flipped the crate over on top of herself. It was no cardboard box, but it would have to do, as she softly hummed the theme to an old PlayStation stealth game under her breath.

Part of her just imagined the bewildered look on Suvdaa's face as she lifted the crate just enough to make it look like it was walking on two feet and started creeping towards the periphery of the smaller tent using the handle-hole cut into the wood to see where she was going.

She carefully made her way around to the back of the small tent and set the crate down, crouching inside of it. If anyone saw her they likely thought they were so sleepy that they had been just seeing things, or maybe thought they were already dreaming.

Mau felt strangely safe inside the crate, like it was some kind of protective bastion where she could just lay down, curl up, and laze for a while. Intellectually she knew that she didn't have the time to actually do so, but instinctively, the whole 'cat' part of being a catgirl made her lay down on her side with a big sleepy yawn.

"No, no, can't nap here." Mau grumbled, reining herself in with an irritated mutter as she peeked through the hole in the box. She was practically on top of the two guards and they hadn't seen her approach. They suspected nothing, nor had they even noticed the box on legs getting dangerously close to them.

This was almost too easy, Mau thought to herself. All the more reason to be patient and stay vigilant, she considered. She waited a good moment, just peeking through the hole in the crate. The guards stood at full alert, waiting for anyone or anything to try and get past them.

Mau decided that her best bet for getting past the two would be to wait; to see if they began to drift off or lose focus. She was more than fine hunkering down in the box, where she felt cozy and safe. The main issue that worried her was what Suvdaa would do if Mau kept her waiting too long. It was a bit of a conundrum, as the guards didn't seem to be flagging in the least.

Mau was still trying to work out the best way to sneak into the tent when footsteps started to approach. And then a voice. She peeked through the hole in the box to see what the commotion was. She was greeted with the sight of the most foppish set of clothes and armor she had ever seen. The bastard's pants were super tight, and Mau had to strain to see past his waist through the little hole in the box, but his breastplate was inlaid with way too much gold and jewelry, and his cloak was an immaculate bright red. He had a youthful face with mismatched blue and red eyes, and a short cut mop of blond hair with wild bangs and kind a mullet look to him.

"Ah." Mau breathed quietly as recognition set in, her memory of the dancing flame in the witch's hut came back as she realized she was staring down one of the Demon Lord's four heavenly kings; Enma.

"No sign of trouble, I take it?" He asked in a way too joyous and lilting voice, like he was trying to fake being happy and playful at the same time.

The orc pair stood at full attention as their superior addressed them, and one nodded.

"Not a thing, sir." The pig-man replied in a gruff tone. "The prisoner hasn't moved an inch since we caught 'em. ... It's sort of... Worrying."

"Aye." The other pig-man mumbled, "The muttering is kind of spooky, sir."

"Well..." Enma began to speak, brightly. "The wards we have on the cage should ensure they don't pull any nasty tricks or try to escape on us... You're perfectly safe here on guard duty~." Enma replied way too vibrantly. "So you needn't worry about a thing!"

The orc pair nodded, exchanging a glance with one another briefly before one spoke up.

"Sir, iffin' we might ask... Do you really think the witch will do what we want?" One guard asked hesitantly.

"I know, I know." Enma said, "I'm just as ready to leave this horrible swamp as you are... But until the hag gives in and gives us the location of the sword, we will not be leaving. But considering the... Leverage we have on her? I'm sure it won't be much longer~."

Mau groused quietly under her breath. The Demon Lord wouldn't be above cheating as soon as he found out the location of the hero's blade. Mau wasn't too pleased about the idea of having to fight through who knows how many monsters to get to her blade, if they managed to get the information before she did.

Briefly, she considered jumping out from under the box, catching the General by surprise, and lopping his head clean off. It would be an easy elimination of a major obstacle in her path, and she was sure Suvdaa could shoot out a path for her once she started running. But that didn't solve the issue of rescuing the prisoner.

Mau decided to wait a bit longer as Enma turned away to start walking away from the posted guards, before he glanced over his shoulder.

"Oh and by the way..." He mused, mismatched eyes settling right on Mau's hiding space.

"Do either of you smell something?"

Mau froze, breath hanging in her throat. Did he somehow manage to pick her up by scent? It was already obvious to her that Enma was likely not human, just like Thanatos wasn't alive, but in his garishly dressed human form.

Fuck fuck fuck Mau thought in a litany of irritation at the thought of being caught, but then Enma covered his nose.

"I'm ordering the both of you to take a bath immediately after your shift." He said with a scowl as he turned and began to walk away once again.

Breathing in a sigh of relief, Mau flopped down on the loamy ground beneath the crate and paused to sniff herself.

She could use an honest to goodness bath, but she wasn't that rank.

"... Well fuck that guy, I guess." She muttered as she decided discretion was now the best option for the moment, and when the guards had their backs turned, lifted the crate just enough to start moseying to the edge of the encampment and make her escape.